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Finally! This new app will protect you from fake news

Do you not possess the time, patience, and critical thinking skills to determine what is true? Do you want strangers to tell you what to believe?
Then this web browser plug-in is for you!

Microsoft recently announced its partnership with popular News Rating website NewsGuard to help users spot fake news with ease. This NewsGuard feature was rolled out to Edge for iOS preview users last year. Today, Microsoft is rolling out this feature to Edge for Android beta users. You can enable this feature by going to Settings-> News rating and toggle the ‘Display rating on address bar’ option.

NewsGuard uses journalism to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation. Our trained analysts, who are experienced journalists, research online news brands to help readers and viewers know which ones are trying to do legitimate journalism—and which are not.

Soon after the social media “purge” of independent media sites and pages this past October, a top neoconservative insider — Jamie Fly — was caught stating that the mass deletion of anti-establishment and anti-war pages on Facebook and Twitter was “just the beginning” of a concerted effort by the U.S. government and powerful corporations to silence online dissent within the United States and beyond.
...Newsguard separates sites it deems worthy and sites it considers unreliable by using a color-coded rating — green, yellow, or red — and more detailed “nutrition labels” regarding a site’s credibility or lack thereof. Rankings are created by Newsguard’s team of “trained analysts.” The color-coding system may remind some readers of the color-coded terror threat-level warning system that was created after 9/11, making it worth noting that Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security who oversaw the implementation of that system under George W. Bush, is on Newsguard’s advisory board.

It's nice to know that the useless Bush-era color-coded terror threat-level warning system is being recycled. What other bad ideas will they reuse?

Wow, this is the advisory board for NewsGuard, the corporate media's favorite new "fact-checking," "anti-fake news" platform:—CIA/NSA director—Homeland security secretary—Undersecretary of state for public diplomacy—White House communications directorhttps://t.co/PtLYohaeJ2pic.twitter.com/bSGPUmEpWZ

Another Newsguard advisor of note is Richard Stengel, former editor of Time magazine, a “distinguished fellow” at the Atlantic Council and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Barack Obama. At a panel discussion hosted last May by the Council on Foreign Relations, Stengel described his past position at the State Department as “chief propagandist” and also stated that he is “not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”
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While Brill and Crovitz themselves are the company’s top investors, one of Newsguard’s most important investors is the Publicis Groupe....it is unsurprising that the Publicis Groupe counts many powerful corporations and governments among its clientele. Some of its top clients in 2018 included pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer and Bayer/Monsanto as well as Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, McDonalds, Kraft Heinz, Burger King, and the governments of Australia and Saudi Arabia.

Nothing says freedom like a partnership between multinational corporation and the MIC.
Hurrah! The ruling elite will save us from having to think for ourselves!

Aloha, Hawaiian libraries! The state has added the NewsGuard extension to the computers patrons use in all its public libraries. Thanks to #Microsoft for sponsoring news literacy. https://t.co/nVoJ7xNbAS

Comments

Another Newsguard service shows that this organization is also seeking to harm independent media financially by targeting online revenue. Through a service called “Brandguard,” which it describes as a “brand safety tool aimed at helping advertisers keep their brands off of unreliable news and information sites while giving them the assurance they need to support thousands of Green-rated [i.e., Newsguard-approved] news and information sites, big and small.”

At the time the service was announced last November, Newsguard co-CEO Brill stated that the company was “in discussions with the ad tech firms, leading agencies, and major advertisers” eager to adopt a blacklist of news sites deemed “unreliable” by Newsguard.
...
Though it is just getting started, Newsguard’s plan to insert its app into every device and major social-media network is a threat to any news site that regularly publishes information that rubs any of Newsguard’s investors, partners or advisors the wrong way. Given its plan to rank the English-language U.S. news sites that account for 98 percent of U.S. digital news consumption, Newsguard’s agenda is of the utmost concern to every independent media page active in the United States and beyond — given Newsguard’s promise to take its project global.

By linking up with former CIA and NSA directors, Silicon Valley Giants, and massive PR firms working for some of the most controversial governments and corporations in the world, Newsguard has betrayed the fact that it is not actually seeking to “restore trust and accountability” in journalism, but to “restore trust and accountability” in news outlets that protect the existing power structure and help shield the corporate-led oligarchy and military-industrial complex from criticism.

At a Council on Foreign Relations forum about "fake news," former Editor at Time Magazine Richard Stengel directly states that he supports the use of propaganda on American citizens - then shuts the session down when challenged about how propaganda is used against the third world pic.twitter.com/ClAT5POv7G

There's a little "Rating" now in Firefox in the upper right. However, it rates sites on how many tracking cookies it has to block, the connection, and privacy policies. Right now, c99 is getting a B+. Apparently the worst tracker offender on this site is google. Interestingly, Facebook and Twitter don't care. I personally think they just added us to the "Block" list, so it doesn't show up as much...

Just for reference... Almost all Corporate Media sites usually get D's...

At least it's a valuable, specific metric that allows me to know when the abyss is staring back at me.

There's a little "Rating" now in Firefox in the upper right. However, it rates sites on how many tracking cookies it has to block, the connection, and privacy policies. Right now, c99 is getting a B+. Apparently the worst tracker offender on this site is google. Interestingly, Facebook and Twitter don't care. I personally think they just added us to the "Block" list, so it doesn't show up as much...

Just for reference... Almost all Corporate Media sites usually get D's...

At least it's a valuable, specific metric that allows me to know when the abyss is staring back at me.

Out of "a representative sample of 25,000 U.S. Gallup Panel members" who were "invited" to install the extension, "706 panel members who used the tool evaluated its features and usefulness." IOW, 24,294 U.S. Gallup Panel members declined to try it.

The key distraction here is what is meant by "representative". The representation of the poll is of members who wanted the extension, just 2.8% of the ones queried whether they'd like to try it, so I'm offering that odds are pretty high that they'd have positive expectations for it.

Further, "Gallup’s invitation letter explained that a team of experienced journalists assigned the source ratings".

More - "Results are based on self - administered web surveys among the 706 U.S. adults..."

Knowing all that, it's hardly worth even looking at the numbers.

Now, I've got 25,000 left-handed mouse apps for anyone to try on their desktop; and if those who try them like them, that means everybody should use them, right? Actually, that would be closer to true than this poll is - 10% of people are lefties, not 2.8%.

Edit: And they were paid. "Respondents who completed the survey received a $2 incentive."

@detroitmechworks
Are you using a plug-in? I see a lot of ratings-type plug-ins FF/Moz's plug-ins catalog.

There's a little "Rating" now in Firefox in the upper right. However, it rates sites on how many tracking cookies it has to block, the connection, and privacy policies. Right now, c99 is getting a B+. Apparently the worst tracker offender on this site is google. Interestingly, Facebook and Twitter don't care. I personally think they just added us to the "Block" list, so it doesn't show up as much...

Just for reference... Almost all Corporate Media sites usually get D's...

At least it's a valuable, specific metric that allows me to know when the abyss is staring back at me.

Control the message to control the people. They felt like they lost in '16 because they lost control of the message and are in overdrive trying to reclaim it. With privatized 'Ministries of Truth'. Sure glad to see Tom Ridge still getting to play red green yellow.
But now for big bucks no doubt. He must have really been taken with it. Simple minds. That Verrit thing worked real good... hopefully this will do as well.

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12 users have voted.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark....Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.” ― Ayn Rand

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark....Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.” ― Ayn Rand

"Kubrick, Nixon and the man in the moon", saying this were the first fake news story in history. Then I checked it on the channel ARTE (who broadcasted that film) in their mediathek and they said it was a satire with intermingled documentary quotes from Kissinger, Rumsfeld and some filmmaker. As I started watching the film in the middle (around TC 20)and didn't see the beginning I got confused for a while.

So, where is the app for that kind of fake stories?
The app is the little /s sign, so you have the fun of confusing people, and who can resist that

This is the sort of thing people ought to be alerted to on par with virus/scam warnings.

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4 users have voted.

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“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark....Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.” ― Ayn Rand